Give my umbrella to the Rain Dogs / For I am a Rain Dog too.
Don’t assume the springs won’t break free
from their box mattress—sheets flaunting their disarray
across the bed, or
count on scenery through unwashed
windows, or that mice, anticipating
your arrival, will vacate. If
there’s a wishing-well in the front
yard, likely its weed-clogged, so
cast no coin, make no wish. If
you should happen to rest
on the hay-stuffed sofa, and a torrential
downpour slams your solitude, or should you
contemplate buying this foreclosed relic
for a getaway, don’t ease into the solitude
of sleep. Just when such calm seduces
you on the edge of its tricky precipice, thunder
shivers the walls of your potential buy, and any sanity
you thought you possessed surrenders to the rain
dogs—their teeth slavered with hope.
Dianna MacKinnon Henning holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Published in, in part: The Moth, Ireland; Sukoon, Volume 5; Naugatuck River Review, Lullwater Review, The Red Rock Review, The Kentucky Review, The Good Works Review, The Main Street Rag, California Quarterly, Poetry International and Fugue. Finalist in Aesthetica’s Creative Writing Award in the UK. Three-time Pushcart nominee. Henning received several CAC grants and taught through California Poets in the Schools and through the William James Association’s Prison Arts Program. Henning’s third poetry book Cathedral of the Hand published 2016 by Finishing Line Press.
